IBM created Watson, the computer that defeated Jeopardy! champions in 2011.
Watson was an IBM artificial-intelligence system designed to answer questions posed in natural language. It competed on the television quiz show Jeopardy! in a special three-day match broadcast in February 2011. Watson faced former champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.
The system won the match, earning IBM a $1 million prize. Watson did not simply search for exact phrases; it analyzed clues, generated possible answers, assessed confidence, and selected a response. Its performance demonstrated the difficulty of understanding language, wordplay, and broad general knowledge.
Watson’s name honored Thomas J. Watson, IBM’s longtime president and chief executive. The Jeopardy! appearance is often described as a milestone in public-facing AI, but it was a specialized question-answering system rather than a human-like general intelligence.